


Graveyards

by Inopportunist



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inopportunist/pseuds/Inopportunist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their names escape him but he will continue to search.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Graveyards

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted to my Tumblr, here: http://inopportune-opportunist.tumblr.com/post/48249874626/drabble-graveyards  
> where think I shall post many more drabbles in the future.

He had thought, in the centuries since the moon had given him his name, that he had simply been born of the ice. That some spark of deep, true cold, the sort that rested in his heart, had formed there in the pond. And there, he had grown and changed into what he was now, incubated in the womb of the frozen water and born with the shattering of the ice into the howling winter wind.

The truth was harder to bear.

There had been another time, another life, one which he could hardly remember. He recalled smiling brown eyes and soft brown hair, maternal warmth and sisterly adoration. He recalled long, strong arms that lifted him into the air and spun him about, big hands and broad shoulders that taught and held and comforted. He recalled white fluff and well-tended shears next to carding brushes and spindles and a wooden wheel.

But there were few true memories.

Impressions of family and home and love enveloped him in the nights after the glittering box had opened, revealing the necessary memory, but he could not stir up a single happening but for those he had been given in his darkest moment.

But the worst realization was that he could not remember their names.

His sister’s nearly leapt to the tip of his tongue whenever he thought of her, but he could not say it. His parents’ escaped him entirely; never mind those of the other settlers. Overland was the only thing in his recollection.

Then Jamie had said something. Something about an old graveyard, _haunted_ , he’d whispered to his friends. Jack was intrigued. How old could it be? Old enough, perhaps, to hold his grave and then those of his parents and sister and perhaps she’d had children and they were buried there as well.

When Jamie and his group had gathered, already old enough to be driving and holding hands and saying things that made Jack blush, the Guardian of Fun had followed. They were too old to see him now but he walked with them into the forest, down an overgrown path, and through warped and rusted gates falling from their hinges on the short stone wall.

It was eerie and quiet but Jack saw no other spirits though the Burgess teens seemed to think they would if they waited long enough. The Winter Spirit began brushing away dirt and moss and vines in search of Overland, moving further into the cemetery when he noticed the graves near the front were from the 1780s. Near the very last row he finally encountered something promising: his own grave. ‘J. Overland’ it said, the dates were worn down by the moss he’d wiped from the façade but he could clearly read ‘Jan. 14, 16’ for his date of birth.

He moved to the next headstone and, finding an unknown name, moved forward one row to immediately see ‘N. Overland’s’ name carved into rough stone. And right next to it was another Overland. His parents…

And suddenly Jack remembered. There had been Nathaniel, his Papa, and Abigail, his Ma… and his sister was…

He couldn’t _remember_.

So he searched and searched for the rest of the night and into the next day, long after Jamie had left, half-terrified but without any good ghost stories to share with his other friends.

It was noon before he realized he would probably never find his sister’s headstone; she had probably married, changing her last name. Perhaps she’d even left the village for new lands and better opportunities than those of a shepherd’s life. Mournfully, he slumped against the headstone of one Emma Bennett and held back his tears.


End file.
